


The Missing Body of Ryan Bergara

by cryingdrama3



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series), Buzzfeed: Worth It (Web Series)
Genre: 1950s, Detective C. C. Tinsley, M/M, Missing Body, Murder, Reincarnation, Ryan Bergara is a ghost, Shane Madej Sees Ghosts, technically not
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:34:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27624130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryingdrama3/pseuds/cryingdrama3
Summary: Shane Madej has the unfortunate gift of seeing the dead and understanding them only whenever he sleeps. Until he moves into a new apartment building, he bumps into a ghost that he can sit down and talk to.
Relationships: C. C. Tinsley/Ryan Bergara, Ryan Bergara/Shane Madej, Shane Madej/Ricky Goldsworth
Comments: 3
Kudos: 32





	The Missing Body of Ryan Bergara

**Author's Note:**

> Note: this is inspired by @static.emz 's fanart of Ghost! Ryan on Tik Tok.   
> And that this takes place in a separate universe than my past work (known as the Crime Family series).

Growing up, Shane Madej was a stubborn child. Of course he was, he was the younger sibling and always felt like he was the favorite. He was those children who understood right away at a younger age than he will never be the best at everything and to not even try very hard if there was no success at the end. He wasn’t lazy; quite the opposite really. Every lead role in Theatre was handed to him, he had a talent and determination when it came to acting and staying in character. No one could get him to break character. Yet, deep inside of him, the adoration always drove him. 

In other words, Shane Madej learned to work smarter; not harder. 

But he was also a strange child. Those children who understood the world a bit too well and listened to ‘grown folk talk’ and simply knew what they were talking about as plain as day. Not only his early grasp made him different from others. You see, Shane Madej can see ghosts. 

Not actual ghosts like in the movies. Not a full-body apparition where he can see the face of a person. More dots and vaguely shaped mist in the corners that he can spot out in the corner of his eye. For a long time, he didn’t know that those things that he always saw were ghosts. He always assumed that he was just the strange one in the family that got handed the mental illness of the family like it was the hand-me-downs his brother would throw at him. Thanks to the media he would often consume, he denied the existence of those spirits.

The Dots or the Mists would never speak to him. They hovered around in the room where they would stay, usually far in the corner as if they were a scared dog. It wasn’t until Shane would fall asleep, his moments of vulnerability were  _ understood  _ the ghosts. His dreams are where they would come and visit, usually to explain what happened to them. It wasn’t by words though.

When Shane was ten years old, he stayed over at a friend's house for a party. It was normal: popcorn, movies and soda pop accompanied with the ghost ‘sitting’ in a chair in the corner. A pulsing Dot tha would usually sway side to side as if they were still a real person. That night, when the sleep beat him and made his head lay on the pillow his dream connected them. He was in a lonesome fancy restaurant, those where the rich go-to wine and dine without a care in the world. He was sitting alone, no food on the table but the plates and fancy spoons were ready for someone to come by. An older woman appeared across from him, and so did a plate of steak and mashed potatoes. And as they ate, the older woman ‘talked’. Well, Shane imagined that they talked. That they had a nice conversation over a nice dinner. He would see her move her rose-colored lips but no words could come out. Nothing clear, cut out vowels and made up sounds. He can only compare it to trying to read someone’s lips in the middle of stage with noise-canceling headphones and trying to follow along. But by the end of the dinner, Shane  _ understood  _ the older woman and her death: poison. Ten-year-old Shane would wake up knowing the spirits like family. 

Now as a 30-year-old man, he knows better to speak about those types of interactions. In fact, he would flip it around. His whole identity was being the skeptic in a group of friends. The brave one where his girlfriends or girl friends would hide their faces in his shoulder during a horror movie. He has grown to understand that his crossing with ghosts was simply not worth the hard work.

When he moved into his new apartment building, he made sure that there were no Mists or Dots. He roamed around the building and waited to see one, looking at every corner and glancing at every reflective surface like a detective trying to spot something off. Instead, it made him seem like a bit of a creep. At least now the neighbors won’t bother him.

+++

Shane placed the last box into a corner of the living room. After a long day of moving in made him sore all over. He had decided this tiny place over a busy place in the high traffic district. It was cheaper, less noise and fewer ghosts. You have no idea how many people get murder in the middle of the streets or on the sidewalks and will haunt the nearest building just to have a ‘final resting place’ to call their own. 

He lays down on his couch, his. He bought it with his own money and didn’t plan on selling any time soon. This couch had followed him ever since he moved to California. It was his first real couch that he bought with hard work and young adult awkwardness. And it's not going anywhere for a long while. 

He twists to lay on his side, staring at the spot where the TV was on the floor. It wasn’t plugged in or programmed so he wouldn’t be able to turn it on to watch an episode of  _ Law & Order _ until the morning. He sighs, getting comfortable as his eyelids began to droop, the exhausting of moving boxes slowly hitting him all at once. With a deep breath, he was slipping into his sleep. Into his dreams. Into the thinning veil.

The front door slowly creaked close, the locks twisting to secure the apartment. 

  
  
  
  
  


Shane wasn’t alone. Not really. The hallway was the same hallway as the ones in his new apartment building. But the decor was just a bit different. The wallpaper was fresher and cleaner, a soft and meadowy yellow that made him feel just a bit of ease and nothing like that sickly beige that his building down has.

He touches the wall and he can feel the plaster on his fingertips. It was too real. “Huh, I guess I do get my money’s worth,” he mumbles to himself as he slowly walks, dragging his fingers across the wall. Only stopping when he walks across a mirror that is no longer in the hallway. He sees himself. Just himself. Same nose, a bit longer hair but overall the same face. The only minor difference was the bags under his eyes. Shane touches them, pulling on them for a bit before swatting his own hand away. 

The door at the end of the hall was calling for him, heavy steps and the shadow of someone dancing around behind the door and spilling into the hallway. Shane knocks on the door. Three solid knocks that his father taught him to show confidence without a single spoken word. 

There was clattering from inside the apartment and mild cursing before it was pulled open. A young man, one younger than Shane opens the door with disheveled hair, a pink face, and the brightest smile that he had the pleasure of seeing. 

“Tinsley!” cheered the man, pulling him inside the room with a spark in his eyes that he has never seen in someone before. Shane let himself be pulled into the room, the door closing behind him for him to be in his apartment. 

_ His  _ apartment. 

Shane should recognize it. He spent two weeks analyzing the photos online to see if it might be haunted. The brick L-section right next to the window where he was going to place his record player and a bookshelf at. And now here he is, in a dream with a ghost who called him by a name that was not his. 

“Tinsley?” the young man says, holding on to his coat tight, like a child pulling him along. “What’s wrong?” 

He didn’t know what to say. In fact, he shouldn’t be able to answer his question. He shouldn’t be able to understand him. 

“I can hear you?” Shane whispers, touching his own ear in shock. “I can hear you!” he says out loud, surprised, and worried at what this might mean. His heart beating loudly in his chest, right below his nice shirt. 

The young man stares at him, worry dances across his face like a car passing under a lit streetlight. “Tinsley, you’re scaring me,” he says, reaching to touch Shane’s hands to hold. 

Shane stares at their hands, surprised by how comfort washes over. Olive skin contrasting against his own pale hand. It shouldn’t have brought a feeling of nostalgia up, like living a memory that shouldn’t be his. It made his teeth ache with a sense of otherness. “I’m… not Tinsley,” he whispers. Guilty that he burst this hopeful man’s bubble and should have played along instead. But it was too late. 

The Young Man pulls away, eyebrows furrowed. His too-big coat hanging off of his shoulder made Shane suddenly feel too small. Which was impossible, he was a whole head and half bigger than this stranger. “Tinsley, if this is some sick game of yours then you should know better than to not tell me beforehand,” the man says, taking a step back with a slightly nervous smile.

“No, no no,” Shane says, suddenly feeling as hurt as the man across from him. “I’m not who you think I am. I’m… you’re… I-- I can  _ understand  _ you.” 

The Young Man’s face twists in confusion, staring at him before slowly taking a step closer towards Shane, inspecting his face to see if something might be different and strange about this new person with a familiar face. He stares deeply into Shane’s eyes, searching and hoping for something he knows. His hands touch his face, Shane flinching away but staying when he feels the young man’s hands graze his cheeks. A feeling washes over him like an exhale that deflates all of his anxieties. 

“You’re not my Tinsley,” he says, disappointment clothing his face. The young man’s hands pull away. “If you’re not my Charlie then who are you? And why do you look like him--”

Shane was going to try and answer, trying to explain his ‘gift’ and what this means to him but he was interrupted by the horror that was unfolding in front of his eyes. The young man’s face pales as blood drips from his hairline. Dripping down his face like sweat but faster and more fluid. The Young man reached to touch his face. Then, blood slowly blossomed from under his shirt. His abdomen was caked in red as he touched his stomach. He stares at his hands in horror. 

The last thing Shane saw was the Young man reaching at him, silently begging for help before he collapsed on the floor below him. 

+++

It was morning when Shane jerks awake, twisting off of the couch and crashing into the floor with a really loud and heavy thud. He sits up, rubbing his shoulder. “So much for no Mists or Dots,” he mumbles to himself as he stands up, the sun coming in through his window and hitting his face. 

He looks around, expecting to see the pulsing Dot in the corner or a vaguely-shaped Mist waiting for the sun to come down to be awake in the night and in Shane, haunting only him and no one who is truly worthy of a haunting. Instead, he saw that he will never be alone. 

The Young man was standing in the middle of the doorway, staring at him with a sickly, horrified face. As if Shane was the ghost here. His tan coat hangs off his shoulders, the bottom of it reaching to below his knees and he was dressed as professionally as someone who wanted to impress their significant other’s family at church. Right down to the nice slacks, red tie, and the almost-neat hair. He was fairly attractive, a boyish charm that made Shane smile just a bit before realizing that blood was splattered on his shoulders and a large red stain on his stomach on his white shirt. Blood was still on his face, fairly fresh. Enough for it sparkled like macabre diamonds under the sunlight. 

Shane should be terrified, he should be. He’s never seen an FBA before. All of them were in his dreams but now standing in front of him with a handsome face. It was… fascinating." 

The Young man stares at him. “Hello, Not-Tinsley.” 

Shane takes another step closer at him, still rubbing his shoulder. “You’re… you’re not a Dot or a Mist,” he wonders out loud. “You look human.” 

The spirit raises an eyebrow at him. “Of course I’m human, Stretch,” he says, sounding offended as he crosses his arms across his chest. 

“Well, you’re also a ghost,” he points out. He towers him in an almost comedic way. A ghost being short next to a human is a joke that he didn’t expect the universe to throw at Shane. Granted, at this point in his life, he doesn’t know what to expect from life. Shane couldn’t help himself and reached a hand, wondering how it might feel to go through a ghost. The closest thing he’s ever come to touching one was when he was sixteen and a Mist was blown through his arm when he was in the middle of rehearsal. It made him so dizzy that he collapsed on stage. 

When he felt the young man’s shoulder on his hand, Shane jumped back. And so did the Spirit. Shane looks at his hand, fingers turned blue as if frostbitten before it faded away. “I can touch you?” 

“You can touch me?” the Young man says, touching the spot where this tall man's fingers brushed against his shoulder. “I thought… I thought the living couldn’t touch the dead.” 

Shane takes in a deep breath, shaking his head before saying: “Okay. Let’s start over just to handle all of… this more easily.” He extended his hand out towards this small, solid spirit. “Hi. I’m Shane. I can see the dead.”

The spirit stares at the hand before reaching over, taking his hand and shaking it with the politeness of a church-goer. “I’m Ryan Bergara. I’m dead.” 


End file.
